THE DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK ELEVEN
Here are the poems to vote for in week eleven of my Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, June 4, to Sunday, June 10):
71. There Is A Bird We Cannot See, by Molly Lou Freeman (only the first poem)
72. Paradise, by Arthur Smith
73. Hey You, by Adrian Blevins
74. 2:09 a.m. IM , by Janet Holmes
75. Bright World, by Carl Phillips
76. The Dark-Light of Spring, by Eric Leigh
77. After Persephone, by Tracy K. Smith
You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog. If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments). In any case, I will not post the comments until after the final vote is in (secret ballot). You may vote by the title, the author's name, or the number of the poem in the list above. Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem (although it is always interesting to see people's lists).
Please VOTE BY THURSDAY, JUNE 14! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results, which might only be on June 15 or 16.
If you want to receive an email announcing the results, send me your email address with your vote (if you have a public blogger profile, I can usually find it).
Abstaining: If you read the poems but decide that there is no poem that you want to vote for, I would be interested to know that you decided to abstain.
Week 10 results are here. A summary of the results of the first nine weeks is at the end of the week 9 results.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Anne Duden in Mantis
Mantis 6 contains two of my translations of Anne Duden, "Otherland" and "Responsorium."
I have not had time to read the rest of the issue yet, but it looks promising, with many translations, including two I really look forward to reading:
1. Mark Terrill's translation of part of a long poem by Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, along with an essay on Brinkmann's work by Martin Kagel.
2. Four poems by Ko Un, whose Ten Thousand Lives I am currently reading, and which I will blog enthusiastically about soon.
Here's one of the Duden poems:
RESPONSORIUM
I
Christ's foreskin
from the relic jar, crystal egg, or glass bowels
in words
almost lost
balanced past the park
the one full of poultry and leftovers
by Vondel
GEVOGELTE & WILD
like dog shit
and violets
and the blue suns
of anemones
already weak-sphinctered from the first warmth
and the moon's silver rocker
on the diamond plumb
frozen.
II
Or vice versa
Christ's forerank
in the garden
— Good Lord on Good Friday —
and those goblet gutturals and redthroats
and stabs
up to under the ribbed vault
heart and brain
where the one long rests, recovered
cradling and being cradled
in the mother hollow
in the double womb of bin and boat
ON SWAYING SKIFF
high above the lit-up tiles
bridges, carpets
laid silently by the shine
slanting through the windows
onto stone slabs of the lower and other dead
over and over.
III
All around
pushed, piled and massed
at small intervals
rut detectors, runners and outrunners
curly lambs
cull sheep
and the moisture mosaic
pools, puddles and channels
of vomit
master and mastiff urine
and under the bushes
for free
the ground completely slippery
with blind insemination
beside the head yoke
the joggers' sudarium.
IV
Resurrection unseals no lips.
But beauty lies here
in the bed of clouds.
On the Ij, on the Ijssel
on the ice ocean
in the horizon bird's eye
not to be caught
in the wind clock's iris
storm hub at the station
in the feather beat's breeze
in the heron's flight
from water to water
sky to sky
and fish to fish.
I have not had time to read the rest of the issue yet, but it looks promising, with many translations, including two I really look forward to reading:
1. Mark Terrill's translation of part of a long poem by Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, along with an essay on Brinkmann's work by Martin Kagel.
2. Four poems by Ko Un, whose Ten Thousand Lives I am currently reading, and which I will blog enthusiastically about soon.
Here's one of the Duden poems:
RESPONSORIUM
I
Christ's foreskin
from the relic jar, crystal egg, or glass bowels
in words
almost lost
balanced past the park
the one full of poultry and leftovers
by Vondel
GEVOGELTE & WILD
like dog shit
and violets
and the blue suns
of anemones
already weak-sphinctered from the first warmth
and the moon's silver rocker
on the diamond plumb
frozen.
II
Or vice versa
Christ's forerank
in the garden
— Good Lord on Good Friday —
and those goblet gutturals and redthroats
and stabs
up to under the ribbed vault
heart and brain
where the one long rests, recovered
cradling and being cradled
in the mother hollow
in the double womb of bin and boat
ON SWAYING SKIFF
high above the lit-up tiles
bridges, carpets
laid silently by the shine
slanting through the windows
onto stone slabs of the lower and other dead
over and over.
III
All around
pushed, piled and massed
at small intervals
rut detectors, runners and outrunners
curly lambs
cull sheep
and the moisture mosaic
pools, puddles and channels
of vomit
master and mastiff urine
and under the bushes
for free
the ground completely slippery
with blind insemination
beside the head yoke
the joggers' sudarium.
IV
Resurrection unseals no lips.
But beauty lies here
in the bed of clouds.
On the Ij, on the Ijssel
on the ice ocean
in the horizon bird's eye
not to be caught
in the wind clock's iris
storm hub at the station
in the feather beat's breeze
in the heron's flight
from water to water
sky to sky
and fish to fish.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Michael Hamburger
"All the same, I was born; and what is more, with alacrity—so I am told—in the small hours; at the crack of spring, and impatient for it. Impatience, Kafka said, is the primal sin. I was guilty of it, in early years at least. It was the month of the year when Kafka left Berlin to die. It was the day, March 22nd, of Goethe's death and his cry for more light."
Michael Hamburger (1924-2007), String of Beginnings
The two swallows seen shivering
After the feat of migration
Have moved on or starved,
Unmended their mud nests gape.
(from Late)
Michael Hamburger (1924-2007), String of Beginnings
The two swallows seen shivering
After the feat of migration
Have moved on or starved,
Unmended their mud nests gape.
(from Late)
Friday, June 08, 2007
Arabic translators
From Language Log:
Stephen Benjamin ... He volunteered for the Navy, went to the Defense Language Institute to learn Arabic, and was ready and willing to go to Iraq. He never got there. Why? Because military snooping on IM exchanges between Benjamin and his roommate revealed that they are gay, as a result of which he was discharged from the Navy.
Now you know it: keeping gays out of the military is more important than talking to Iraqis.
Stephen Benjamin ... He volunteered for the Navy, went to the Defense Language Institute to learn Arabic, and was ready and willing to go to Iraq. He never got there. Why? Because military snooping on IM exchanges between Benjamin and his roommate revealed that they are gay, as a result of which he was discharged from the Navy.
Now you know it: keeping gays out of the military is more important than talking to Iraqis.
DPP10 results
After several weeks in which the bloggers and the students in the Daily Poem Project voted for the same poems (see the summary of the results for the whole project at the end of the week 9 results), the two groups produced different results again this week.
The class voted this morning, and Ditchdigger, by Liane Strauss, received the most votes (4 out of 13), with no other poem receiving more than two.
The bloggers, however, gave one poem a clear majority of the vote: Inside the Maze (II, III, and IV), by Hadara Bar-Nadav, ran away with it with 7 votes (out of 12 cast), with only Strauss's "Ditchdigger" also receiving more than one (and it only got two).
One of the votes for "Ditchdigger" was from yours truly: it was an easy choice for me, as that was the only poem I really liked on a first reading. Too easy, perhaps—all the votes for Bar-Nadav's poem made me look at it quite closely, and what I discovered is that the form becomes much less intrusive if I read the poem out loud. I'm still not entirely convinced by the form, but at least it is no longer obstructing my response to the content.
Frequent DPP voter Don Brown is on vacation, so I have to do without his detailed comments this week, but several voters contributed comments to the call-for-votes post:
Nic Sebastian said...
The class voted this morning, and Ditchdigger, by Liane Strauss, received the most votes (4 out of 13), with no other poem receiving more than two.
The bloggers, however, gave one poem a clear majority of the vote: Inside the Maze (II, III, and IV), by Hadara Bar-Nadav, ran away with it with 7 votes (out of 12 cast), with only Strauss's "Ditchdigger" also receiving more than one (and it only got two).
One of the votes for "Ditchdigger" was from yours truly: it was an easy choice for me, as that was the only poem I really liked on a first reading. Too easy, perhaps—all the votes for Bar-Nadav's poem made me look at it quite closely, and what I discovered is that the form becomes much less intrusive if I read the poem out loud. I'm still not entirely convinced by the form, but at least it is no longer obstructing my response to the content.
Frequent DPP voter Don Brown is on vacation, so I have to do without his detailed comments this week, but several voters contributed comments to the call-for-votes post:
Nic Sebastian said...
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Colloquial style II
Jonathan continues from what I linked to on my previous post with this title:
"There are two equal and opposite fallacies. One is that the colloquial direct style is and should be the ideal for all poetic writing. That you should never write anything that couldn't be said. The other fallacy is that poetic language needs to mark its distance, be its own separate language."
Highly recommended!
"There are two equal and opposite fallacies. One is that the colloquial direct style is and should be the ideal for all poetic writing. That you should never write anything that couldn't be said. The other fallacy is that poetic language needs to mark its distance, be its own separate language."
Highly recommended!
Monday, June 04, 2007
Call for submissions, No Man's Land
Call for Submissions - no man's land # 2
Contemporary German-language fiction and poetry in English translation.
Deadline: August 30, 2007.
Contemporary German-language fiction and poetry in English translation.
Deadline: August 30, 2007.
After its launch in December 2006 with English translations from the 10th anniversary issue of the alternative Berlin literary magazine lauter niemand, no man's land will continue as an annual online magazine at www.no-mans-land.org. It is now open for submissions of contemporary German-language fiction and poetry in English translation. We are especially interested in work by interesting, important yet under- (or never!) translated writers.
For prose, send up to 3 submissions by one or different writers: a submission is considered as one story or self-contained novel excerpt, max. 4,000 words. For poetry, send translations of work by up to 3 poets, each to a maximum of 5 poems.
The deadline is August 30, 2007 (postmark date), and we will inform contributors by early October 2007; the issue will go online in December. If funding permits, we will offer translators a small honorarium.
Please include your contact information, biographical and publication information (on both translator and author) and a copy of the original, and let us know who holds the rights to the piece; in the event of publication, proof of permission will be required.
Submissions should be sent to
no man's land
PO Box 02 13 04
10125 Berlin
Germany
If you are able to include the original text in file format (PDF or other), submissions can be sent electronically to this e-mail adress 
We look forward to reading your work!
Isabel Cole and Alistair Noon
Editors, no man's land
Songs and Poems
A comment on a post by Rob MacKenzie (and the comment on that post by Ben Wilkinson):
I'm teaching a course on poetry and songwriting right now, and many of the students are in bands (and though they are Swiss, they sing in English). Reading their texts, I am very conscious of the distinction between songs and poems: songs, as Ben put it so well, "lack the singularity that the good poem possesses."
This is a matter of phrasing: writing that can work well in songs often falls flat if read without music, because the presence of the music allows the songwriter to prop up phrases that are unable to stand on their own (too cliched, for example).
That said, I'll defend Dylan (and Tom Waits) as contemporary songwriters who have written many texts that stand up on the page, without the music.
I'm teaching a course on poetry and songwriting right now, and many of the students are in bands (and though they are Swiss, they sing in English). Reading their texts, I am very conscious of the distinction between songs and poems: songs, as Ben put it so well, "lack the singularity that the good poem possesses."
This is a matter of phrasing: writing that can work well in songs often falls flat if read without music, because the presence of the music allows the songwriter to prop up phrases that are unable to stand on their own (too cliched, for example).
That said, I'll defend Dylan (and Tom Waits) as contemporary songwriters who have written many texts that stand up on the page, without the music.
Aimee Mann on Sgt. Pepper's
I enjoyed Aimee Mann's article on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. (Just typing in the title is fun: what a great phrase.)
As I live with a seven-year-old Beatlemaniac (Miles), I've been listening to lots of the Fab Four for the past few years (he first turned Beatlemaniac when he was two, I think, with "Here Comes the Sun"). And one thing I agree with Mann (and others) about: SPLHCB is deservedly influential, but it also has some surprising weaknesses. The hit songs on it are brilliant, but the other tunes are only very good, even though many songwriters would kill to write even one as good. "She's Leaving Home" has been singled out in some of the commentaries I have read as a weak song, but all you need to do to hear how brilliant the music is is here Brad Mehldau play it on jazz piano.
I was surprised to learn elsewhere that "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were supposed to be on the album, but were not put on it because they had been released as a single already.
As I live with a seven-year-old Beatlemaniac (Miles), I've been listening to lots of the Fab Four for the past few years (he first turned Beatlemaniac when he was two, I think, with "Here Comes the Sun"). And one thing I agree with Mann (and others) about: SPLHCB is deservedly influential, but it also has some surprising weaknesses. The hit songs on it are brilliant, but the other tunes are only very good, even though many songwriters would kill to write even one as good. "She's Leaving Home" has been singled out in some of the commentaries I have read as a weak song, but all you need to do to hear how brilliant the music is is here Brad Mehldau play it on jazz piano.
I was surprised to learn elsewhere that "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were supposed to be on the album, but were not put on it because they had been released as a single already.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Colin Will, "Sushi & Chips"
I recently read Colin Will's Sushi & Chips. Here are a few good lines from the book:
seabirds sound their evening calls,
muted, sad, because we think it so.
("Hedderwick")
... the tide's lapping advance,
a twice-daily fish delivery system.
("Heron")
Childhood's a passive thing:
memories are of happenings,
not doings.
("A Windfall")
a blue splash—
a silver fish
flies up to the branch
("More Haiku")
The first two of these struck me with how they mixed natural description with something that disrupts the description: the human interpretation of the scene in the first case, the metaphor derived from human technology in the second. Technological metaphors in nature poetry:
SOUNDS OF SPRING
It's been quieter here
since the trained Tornados left
for the whirlwind of war—
until today.
The noise at first felt
rather than heard,
a road-drill in the sky, then
that flickering bass thump
got louder.
The Chinook starred
in a small blue gap,
twin rotors birling above
the fat body sycamored
from Lakenheath to Leuchars.
Special delivery, I'd guess,
something to shock the seagulls
and an old man painting his fence red.
In Ohio, where I grew up, tornadoes come in the summer. But here, the planes are signs of spring as sure as seagulls or any other natural image.
The relationship between technology and nature is also nicely highlighted by this wonderfully titled poem:
KIDNEY DONOR WEATHER
Summer shine, warm air, dry roads,
and the leathers come out.
Wintered bikes are serviced,
commuter car garaged for the weekend.
Time to zip past slow lines
of the drab, looking good,
feeling better, weightless on the crests,
forks telescoped heavy in the dips,
on the bends and bays beside Loch Lubnaig.
The line of today is endless and easy;
hands, feet, body, eyes, machine,
all one system for going forward,
for changing time into now,
mountains and water into scenery.
Twin lights are on, to be seen, to be sure,
and all other drivers are stupid, certain
to do the crazy, to miss the obvious,
to turn without signals, brake
from confusion, cross your line.
Helmet turns head into a bug’s eye,
but you remember how it sounded
scraping the road, how your elbow hit,
snapping clavicle. It won’t happen again,
not to you, not ever to you, not this sunny day.
As a vehement wearer of a helmet when bicycling, I can really relate to this poem. :-)
But Sushi & Chips also contains some more straightforward nature poetry:
SPARROWFALL
I held the little bird,
palm of one hand, still,
no need to form a kist
with the other.
Eyes were shut,
beak open and,
I saw, cracked
and blood-beaded.
Wing-shaped feather dust
on the kitchen window
a visual echo
of the sudden thump.
Back arched up slightly.
I still felt fast heart beats
flutter, then the moment
everything stopped.
— Or perhaps that is not as straightforward, after all.
The book also contains some striking poems about relationships, especially "Circumstantial Evidence" and "Foundations," but I'll let you get your own copy in order to read them.
seabirds sound their evening calls,
muted, sad, because we think it so.
("Hedderwick")
... the tide's lapping advance,
a twice-daily fish delivery system.
("Heron")
Childhood's a passive thing:
memories are of happenings,
not doings.
("A Windfall")
a blue splash—
a silver fish
flies up to the branch
("More Haiku")
The first two of these struck me with how they mixed natural description with something that disrupts the description: the human interpretation of the scene in the first case, the metaphor derived from human technology in the second. Technological metaphors in nature poetry:
SOUNDS OF SPRING
It's been quieter here
since the trained Tornados left
for the whirlwind of war—
until today.
The noise at first felt
rather than heard,
a road-drill in the sky, then
that flickering bass thump
got louder.
The Chinook starred
in a small blue gap,
twin rotors birling above
the fat body sycamored
from Lakenheath to Leuchars.
Special delivery, I'd guess,
something to shock the seagulls
and an old man painting his fence red.
In Ohio, where I grew up, tornadoes come in the summer. But here, the planes are signs of spring as sure as seagulls or any other natural image.
The relationship between technology and nature is also nicely highlighted by this wonderfully titled poem:
KIDNEY DONOR WEATHER
Summer shine, warm air, dry roads,
and the leathers come out.
Wintered bikes are serviced,
commuter car garaged for the weekend.
Time to zip past slow lines
of the drab, looking good,
feeling better, weightless on the crests,
forks telescoped heavy in the dips,
on the bends and bays beside Loch Lubnaig.
The line of today is endless and easy;
hands, feet, body, eyes, machine,
all one system for going forward,
for changing time into now,
mountains and water into scenery.
Twin lights are on, to be seen, to be sure,
and all other drivers are stupid, certain
to do the crazy, to miss the obvious,
to turn without signals, brake
from confusion, cross your line.
Helmet turns head into a bug’s eye,
but you remember how it sounded
scraping the road, how your elbow hit,
snapping clavicle. It won’t happen again,
not to you, not ever to you, not this sunny day.
As a vehement wearer of a helmet when bicycling, I can really relate to this poem. :-)
But Sushi & Chips also contains some more straightforward nature poetry:
SPARROWFALL
I held the little bird,
palm of one hand, still,
no need to form a kist
with the other.
Eyes were shut,
beak open and,
I saw, cracked
and blood-beaded.
Wing-shaped feather dust
on the kitchen window
a visual echo
of the sudden thump.
Back arched up slightly.
I still felt fast heart beats
flutter, then the moment
everything stopped.
— Or perhaps that is not as straightforward, after all.
The book also contains some striking poems about relationships, especially "Circumstantial Evidence" and "Foundations," but I'll let you get your own copy in order to read them.
Colloquial style
Jonathan Mayhew makes a point I have long wanted to make, but with such precision that I will just tip my hat to him without further comment:
"We think of a colloquial, direct style as easy to achieve, but if that were true then anybody could write as well as Eileen Myles. But this is obviously not the case. Not even Eileen Myles can write like this--all the time and at will. The directness of WCW and some modernist prose writers too is an achievement. It isn't even that easy to imitate."
"We think of a colloquial, direct style as easy to achieve, but if that were true then anybody could write as well as Eileen Myles. But this is obviously not the case. Not even Eileen Myles can write like this--all the time and at will. The directness of WCW and some modernist prose writers too is an achievement. It isn't even that easy to imitate."
Curse poems
David Lehman's "Curse" reminded me that I have been meaning to ask people to send me curse poems (titles, links, whole poems).
I first thought of this because of Martin Espada's "For the Jim Crow Mexican Restaurant" (which is on-line here, but you have to go to the end of the page to find it). I also like Glyn Maxwell's "Curse on a Child," and my friend Geoff Brock pointed me to Cynthia Huntington's "Curse One" and "Curse Two: The Naming," while Espada himself mentioned Pablo Neruda's "General Franco in Hell."
Others?
*
Whatever your father says you'll oppose
and believe you're acting on principle.
(David Lehman, "Curse")
I first thought of this because of Martin Espada's "For the Jim Crow Mexican Restaurant" (which is on-line here, but you have to go to the end of the page to find it). I also like Glyn Maxwell's "Curse on a Child," and my friend Geoff Brock pointed me to Cynthia Huntington's "Curse One" and "Curse Two: The Naming," while Espada himself mentioned Pablo Neruda's "General Franco in Hell."
Others?
*
Whatever your father says you'll oppose
and believe you're acting on principle.
(David Lehman, "Curse")
DPP10
THE DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK TEN
Here are the poems to vote for in week ten of my Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, May 28, to Sunday, June 3):
64. from: The Book of the Dead Man, by Marvin Bell
65. Poplars, by Donald Revell
66. In Another Year of Fewer Disappointments, by Eliza Griswold
67. Inside the Maze (II, III, and IV), by Hadara Bar-Nadav
68. Auroras, by Joanna Klink
69. Ditchdigger, by Liane Strauss
70. Aftermath, by Forrest Hamer
The Rules:
You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog. If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments). In any case, I will not post the comments until after the final vote is in (secret ballot). You may vote by the title, the author's name, or the number of the poem in the list above. Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem (although it is always interesting to see people's lists).
Please VOTE BY THURSDAY, JUNE 7! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results, which might only be on June 8 or 9.
If you want to receive an email announcing the results, send me your email address with your vote (if you have a public blogger profile, I can usually find it).
Abstaining: If you read the poems but decide that there is no poem that you want to vote for, I would be interested to know that you decided to abstain.
Here are the poems to vote for in week ten of my Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, May 28, to Sunday, June 3):
64. from: The Book of the Dead Man, by Marvin Bell
65. Poplars, by Donald Revell
66. In Another Year of Fewer Disappointments, by Eliza Griswold
67. Inside the Maze (II, III, and IV), by Hadara Bar-Nadav
68. Auroras, by Joanna Klink
69. Ditchdigger, by Liane Strauss
70. Aftermath, by Forrest Hamer
The Rules:
You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog. If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments). In any case, I will not post the comments until after the final vote is in (secret ballot). You may vote by the title, the author's name, or the number of the poem in the list above. Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem (although it is always interesting to see people's lists).
Please VOTE BY THURSDAY, JUNE 7! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results, which might only be on June 8 or 9.
If you want to receive an email announcing the results, send me your email address with your vote (if you have a public blogger profile, I can usually find it).
Abstaining: If you read the poems but decide that there is no poem that you want to vote for, I would be interested to know that you decided to abstain.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Wolfgang Hilbig
bahnhof
grau grau graues durcheinander
von wo kein zug abfährt wo ein riesiger rabe
sich schwarz zwischen die schienen setzt
bahnhof das ist aller orte kältester nachts
schläft niemand
seht unsre gesichter vom laster zerfetzt und
wenn der bahnhof abfährt seht uns trinken
gefangenschaft trinken aus schmutzigem glas
trinken bis der teufel kommt sprechen
zu keinem und alternd noch immer uns wundern
über die gedanken des zerrauften haars
sommer winter jahrhunderte kommen vorüber
uns berühren sie nicht seht uns verweilen
im rauch der rasenden wartesäle einmal
weinen ein paar mal lachen und lauschen
wenn vor dem fenster ein betrunkner
wie verrückt einen namen schreit.
Wolfgang Hilbig (1941-2007), abwesenheit
grau grau graues durcheinander
von wo kein zug abfährt wo ein riesiger rabe
sich schwarz zwischen die schienen setzt
bahnhof das ist aller orte kältester nachts
schläft niemand
seht unsre gesichter vom laster zerfetzt und
wenn der bahnhof abfährt seht uns trinken
gefangenschaft trinken aus schmutzigem glas
trinken bis der teufel kommt sprechen
zu keinem und alternd noch immer uns wundern
über die gedanken des zerrauften haars
sommer winter jahrhunderte kommen vorüber
uns berühren sie nicht seht uns verweilen
im rauch der rasenden wartesäle einmal
weinen ein paar mal lachen und lauschen
wenn vor dem fenster ein betrunkner
wie verrückt einen namen schreit.
Wolfgang Hilbig (1941-2007), abwesenheit
DPP9 results
At one point, I was a bit concerned about the blog vote in this week's Daily Poem Project, because there had been only 9 votes, and 6 poems had received votes, with no poem getting more than two.
By now there have been 17 votes, and all 7 poems have received votes (only the second time in nine weeks that no poem has been shut out). The winner is 33rd & Kirkham, by C. Dale Young, with 4 votes, with two poems tied for second with 3 votes: A Stone Should Mark the Place, by Regan Good and Dialing While Intoxicated, by John Hennessy.
The class vote was also very close, with Young and Hennessy tying for first with four votes each, and The Well at the Broch of Gurness, by Kathleen Jamie receiving 3 votes (out of 14 votes cast).
Although I am a devoted admirer of C. Dale Young, I was a bit disappointed by Poetry Daily's choice of "33rd & Kirkham" to represent his new book The Second Person. I would have gone for "Proximity" or "Prognosis" instead; the latter, especially, would have easily received my vote. (Buy Young's briliant book to check it out.)
As it is, I chose between Jamie and Hennessy, and I went for Hennessy, because of the simultaneous economy and excess of the poem's language.
The comments to the blog included the following:
Donald Brown said...
1. Christian Wiman, "The River"
2. Tom Sleigh, "Blueprint"
3. Jessica Fisher, "The Promise of Nostos"
4. Allen Grossman, "A Gust of Wind"
5. Laure-Anne Bosselaar, "Friends"
6. Robin Ekiss, "Vanitas Mundi"
7. Maurice Manning, "Where Sadness Comes From"
8. Reginald Shepherd, "Eve's Awakening"
9. C. Dale Young, "33rd & Kirkham"
Week 12 will be from June 11 to June 17; I will post a call for votes for the above list of finalists (plus the three remaining winners) on June 24, with at least a week to allow people to choose among them.
For comparison, here are the winners of the first nine weeks of voting by the class (poems that tied for first are given letters along with the week numbers):
1. Derek Walcott, "The Castaway"
2a. C. D. Wright, "Dear night dear shade dear executioner"
2b. Elizabeth Bradfield, "Industry"
2c. Paul Zimmer, "Suck It Up"
3. Josephine Dickinson, "The Bargain"
4a. Mike Dockins, "Poem of Low Latitudes"
4b. Janice N. Harrington, "Shaking the Grass"
5. Laure-Anne Bosselaar, "Friends"
6. Kevin McFadden, "The Ides of Amer-I-Can"
7. Maurice Manning, "Where Sadness Comes From"
8. Reginald Shepherd, "Eve's Awakening"
9a. C. Dale Young, "33rd & Kirkham"
9b. John Hennessy, "Dialing While Intoxicated"
By now there have been 17 votes, and all 7 poems have received votes (only the second time in nine weeks that no poem has been shut out). The winner is 33rd & Kirkham, by C. Dale Young, with 4 votes, with two poems tied for second with 3 votes: A Stone Should Mark the Place, by Regan Good and Dialing While Intoxicated, by John Hennessy.
The class vote was also very close, with Young and Hennessy tying for first with four votes each, and The Well at the Broch of Gurness, by Kathleen Jamie receiving 3 votes (out of 14 votes cast).
Although I am a devoted admirer of C. Dale Young, I was a bit disappointed by Poetry Daily's choice of "33rd & Kirkham" to represent his new book The Second Person. I would have gone for "Proximity" or "Prognosis" instead; the latter, especially, would have easily received my vote. (Buy Young's briliant book to check it out.)
As it is, I chose between Jamie and Hennessy, and I went for Hennessy, because of the simultaneous economy and excess of the poem's language.
The comments to the blog included the following:
Donald Brown said...
-
I can't be dismissive like last week. This is all good stuff. All that careful, even, finely tuned verse that poetry in our time is best at. Which is a way of saying I'm not bowled over by great lyrical moments. The best for that is perhaps #60 by Regan Good, but lifting from Shakespeare (Lady M to her hubby: 'what's done cannot be undone") is a little suspect, to me. "The natural law is wearing winter's face" appeals to me though, and the poem is spooky. It's also suggestive where others are too deliberate, so it almost got my vote. Of the others: #57 Baker, my initial impression is that it's too long and doesn't fully orchestrate all its parts, so that I'm not convinced by all of it. Don't like the Keats part much, for instance. #59, Rose indicates to me the limits of the Poetry Daily enterprise: it's so concentrated I want to read it on paper. It seems unsuited to online poetry, for me. A very good narrative poem. #61, Hennessey, fun, but he's Irish and so of course his diction is interesting, but the subject matter doesn't seem all that striking; #62, Young, very nice, elegant, but seems already too familiar. My vote goes to #58, "The Well at the Broch of Gurness" by Kathleen Jamie which is evocative and elusive and lyrical in a way that appeals to me, mostly.
-
Here's my ranked list (my favorite is at the top):
60. A Stone Should Mark the Place, by Regan Good
57. Posthumous Man, by David Baker
62. 33rd & Kirkham, by C. Dale Young
59. Ablution, by Rachel Rose
63. This Morning, by Sarah Sawyer
61. Dialing While Intoxicated, by John Hennessy
58. The Well at the Broch of Gurness, by Kathleen Jamie -
I thought this was a particularly good week. Couple of strong contenders here, but without wavering I vote for Regan Good. cheers
-
My vote goes to C. Dale Young. "33rd & Kirkham" is, I suppose, an Alba poem. Alba is the dawn which unfaithful lovers dread. But the lovers in Young's poem are not necessarily unfaithful; they may simply not find room for the love, except at night, and in poetry itself.
-
Top 3 are in an almost dead heat (to my ear).
#1: 33rd & Kirkham .... by C. Dale Young
#2: Ablution .... by Rachel Rose
#3: A Stone Should Mark the Place
.... by Regan Good
Next 2 are also almost-a-tie.
#4: The Well at the Broch of Gurness
.... by Kathleen Jamie
#5: Dialing While Intoxicated
.... by John Hennessy
Last 2 "lost" me in one or more ways.
#6: This Morning .... by Sarah Sawyer
#7: Posthumous Man .... by David Baker
1. Christian Wiman, "The River"
2. Tom Sleigh, "Blueprint"
3. Jessica Fisher, "The Promise of Nostos"
4. Allen Grossman, "A Gust of Wind"
5. Laure-Anne Bosselaar, "Friends"
6. Robin Ekiss, "Vanitas Mundi"
7. Maurice Manning, "Where Sadness Comes From"
8. Reginald Shepherd, "Eve's Awakening"
9. C. Dale Young, "33rd & Kirkham"
Week 12 will be from June 11 to June 17; I will post a call for votes for the above list of finalists (plus the three remaining winners) on June 24, with at least a week to allow people to choose among them.
For comparison, here are the winners of the first nine weeks of voting by the class (poems that tied for first are given letters along with the week numbers):
1. Derek Walcott, "The Castaway"
2a. C. D. Wright, "Dear night dear shade dear executioner"
2b. Elizabeth Bradfield, "Industry"
2c. Paul Zimmer, "Suck It Up"
3. Josephine Dickinson, "The Bargain"
4a. Mike Dockins, "Poem of Low Latitudes"
4b. Janice N. Harrington, "Shaking the Grass"
5. Laure-Anne Bosselaar, "Friends"
6. Kevin McFadden, "The Ides of Amer-I-Can"
7. Maurice Manning, "Where Sadness Comes From"
8. Reginald Shepherd, "Eve's Awakening"
9a. C. Dale Young, "33rd & Kirkham"
9b. John Hennessy, "Dialing While Intoxicated"
Henrik Nordbrandt
A few lines from Henrik Nordbrandt, The Hangman's Lament, trans. from the Danish by Thom Satterlee (Green Integer, 2003):
I asked for a shadow and you gave me a nail / long, rusty, and bent
("Near Levkas")
when the storm carries everything else away
including the memory of a freckled girlfriend
out over the bluing lake hidden behind the bare hills
("The Glass Door": page down at the link for the whole poem)
For every nightingale silenced
a gray straw burns in the grass.
("May Morning")
Nordbrandt has an exceptional feel for physical objects:
PRAGMATIC
The things that were here before you died
and the things that have come after:
To the former belong, first of all,
your clothes, the jewelry and the photographs
and the name of the woman you were named after
and who also died young...
But also a couple receipts, the arrangement
of a certain corner in the living room,
a shirt you ironed for me
and which I keep carefully
under my pile of shirts,
certain pieces of music, and the mangy
dog that still stands around
smiling stupidly, as though you were here.
To the latter belong my new fountain pen,
a well-known perfume
on the skin of a woman I hardly even know
and the new light bulbs I put in the bedroom lamp
by whose light I read about you
in every book I try to read.
The former remind me that you were,
the latter that you no longer are.
It is the near indistinguishableness
I find hardest to bear.
LATE SUMMER, 1991
Rain on a white table top
still reflects the drifting clouds
hours after the rain has stopped.
I dry the table with an old rag
a fragment
from one of your blouses, I think.
The ground is ready.
The leaves can let go of their grip
it is late
and gray enough for it.
A summer rushed like a landslide
down to the ground.
And there is dirt on the scrap
of flowered material you wore
one fine day in Algeciras.
I asked for a shadow and you gave me a nail / long, rusty, and bent
("Near Levkas")
when the storm carries everything else away
including the memory of a freckled girlfriend
out over the bluing lake hidden behind the bare hills
("The Glass Door": page down at the link for the whole poem)
For every nightingale silenced
a gray straw burns in the grass.
("May Morning")
Nordbrandt has an exceptional feel for physical objects:
PRAGMATIC
The things that were here before you died
and the things that have come after:
To the former belong, first of all,
your clothes, the jewelry and the photographs
and the name of the woman you were named after
and who also died young...
But also a couple receipts, the arrangement
of a certain corner in the living room,
a shirt you ironed for me
and which I keep carefully
under my pile of shirts,
certain pieces of music, and the mangy
dog that still stands around
smiling stupidly, as though you were here.
To the latter belong my new fountain pen,
a well-known perfume
on the skin of a woman I hardly even know
and the new light bulbs I put in the bedroom lamp
by whose light I read about you
in every book I try to read.
The former remind me that you were,
the latter that you no longer are.
It is the near indistinguishableness
I find hardest to bear.
LATE SUMMER, 1991
Rain on a white table top
still reflects the drifting clouds
hours after the rain has stopped.
I dry the table with an old rag
a fragment
from one of your blouses, I think.
The ground is ready.
The leaves can let go of their grip
it is late
and gray enough for it.
A summer rushed like a landslide
down to the ground.
And there is dirt on the scrap
of flowered material you wore
one fine day in Algeciras.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Light Quarterly 55
The Winter 2006-2007 issue of Light Quarterly features Max Gutmann. His poems are quite funny, but the interview with him is even funnier:
"Every poem should have something to teach us. The capital of Venezuela for instance."
"I write poetry because poems are like children—only you don't have to deal with soiled diapers or spend an arm and a leg sending them to college."
"In times of great social upheaval, people will continue to turn to poetry in their search for answers. ... That or alcohol."
L.Q. asked, "How is writing for children different than writing for adults?" M.G. answered, "You mean other than the obvious, going light on the obscenities, that sort of thing?"
*
Melissa Balmain's "Your Rejection Slip, Annotated" deserves special mention, as does Amit Majmudar's "Phone Tree." I was also delighted to read that Richard Wakefield's East of Early Winters won the Richard Wilbur Award for 2006 and has been published by the University of Evansville Press (following in the footsteps of another Light contributor, A. E. Stallings).
And Gutmann's There Was a Young Girl from Verona: A Limerick Cycle Based on the Complete Dramatic Works of Shakespeare is available from Doggerel Daze.
"Every poem should have something to teach us. The capital of Venezuela for instance."
"I write poetry because poems are like children—only you don't have to deal with soiled diapers or spend an arm and a leg sending them to college."
"In times of great social upheaval, people will continue to turn to poetry in their search for answers. ... That or alcohol."
L.Q. asked, "How is writing for children different than writing for adults?" M.G. answered, "You mean other than the obvious, going light on the obscenities, that sort of thing?"
*
Melissa Balmain's "Your Rejection Slip, Annotated" deserves special mention, as does Amit Majmudar's "Phone Tree." I was also delighted to read that Richard Wakefield's East of Early Winters won the Richard Wilbur Award for 2006 and has been published by the University of Evansville Press (following in the footsteps of another Light contributor, A. E. Stallings).
And Gutmann's There Was a Young Girl from Verona: A Limerick Cycle Based on the Complete Dramatic Works of Shakespeare is available from Doggerel Daze.
My home
My home is a white dome
under me.
It is very quiet.
My home is a bright dome
over me.
It is very quiet.
I rest
in my domed home
in the middle of a small sea.
Me.
I am very quiet
sleeping.
The dome cracks.
The sea leaves.
I wake
cheeping.
Karla Kuskin, Moon, Have You Met My Mother?
under me.
It is very quiet.
My home is a bright dome
over me.
It is very quiet.
I rest
in my domed home
in the middle of a small sea.
Me.
I am very quiet
sleeping.
The dome cracks.
The sea leaves.
I wake
cheeping.
Karla Kuskin, Moon, Have You Met My Mother?
DPP9 voting still open
I'll still accept votes for week 9 of the Daily Poem Project today (Friday, June 1), as the voting is very close and I'd love to see things shuffled up a bit still. Here are the poems to choose from:
57. Posthumous Man, by David Baker
58. The Well at the Broch of Gurness, by Kathleen Jamie
59. Ablution, by Rachel Rose
60. A Stone Should Mark the Place, by Regan Good
61. Dialing While Intoxicated, by John Hennessy
62. 33rd & Kirkham, by C. Dale Young
63. This Morning, by Sarah Sawyer
You can vote by email or by a comment here or on the original post linked above. Vote for only ONE poem!
57. Posthumous Man, by David Baker
58. The Well at the Broch of Gurness, by Kathleen Jamie
59. Ablution, by Rachel Rose
60. A Stone Should Mark the Place, by Regan Good
61. Dialing While Intoxicated, by John Hennessy
62. 33rd & Kirkham, by C. Dale Young
63. This Morning, by Sarah Sawyer
You can vote by email or by a comment here or on the original post linked above. Vote for only ONE poem!
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I'm voting for the Maze, with the Fewer Disappointments next and the Poplars third. 68, 69 and 70 failed to pull me in for various reasons (many sonics-related) and although I found 64 interesting, I couldn't pull it together into any kind of an organic whole in the time allotted. I think it deserves a re-visit at some point. My thoughts on the Maze and the Disappointments at A Bundle of Biases.
I vote for Hadara Bar-Nadav's meditation on the Minotaur. I'm intrigued by animal speakers, or figures that are part animal, part human.--The poem is a bit of a formal experiment, which, I suppose, may have something to do with the maze, and the liminal or fragmented state the Minotaur is in.
Here's my ranked list (my favorite is at the top):
67. Inside the Maze (II, III, and IV), by Hadara Bar-Nadav
65. Poplars, by Donald Revell
66. In Another Year of Fewer Disappointments, by Eliza Griswold
64. from: The Book of the Dead Man, by Marvin Bell
68. Auroras, by Joanna Klink
70. Aftermath, by Forrest Hamer
69. Ditchdigger, by Liane Strauss